Patrick whisked me away to the ski spot of rich-and-famous: Kitzbuhl, Austria …. which in August is the pretty alpine getaway for the not-at-all rich and the and-you-are? It is quite bucolic and milk-maidy, and the view is very Sound of Music. Our hiking was curtailed a bit by my belly, although I did make it up as far as the mountain top bar. On the way down from the mountain, we walked through town where — obviously in our honor — trachten-wearing locals came marching by.
We had hotdogs and cold beer along the Isar that quickly devolved into rootin’ tootin’ July 4th karaoke fest. Yee haw!
Patrick’s officially — officially — a doctor now. His defense last November and “Dr.” emblazoned business cards aren’t really official without the cap and gown ceremony that generally precedes them, but, eh, not in this case. Patrick received his doctoral hood June 1 in a smaller ceremony for the Ph.Ds. and then walked with the entire Princeton graduating class (roughly 2000 students including all the undergrads and masters’ students) on June 2. Patrick’s parents and I had great seats — only a few rows from the front, just behind the press (speaking of press: I ran into a girl I went to Medill with, who is now the spokeswoman for Princeton) — and Patrick managed to finagle himself a front-row center seat after leading in all the students. How’s that for leadership qualities? Oh, and Meryl Streep was also there!
Even though we were both a little sick in early May, we decided — on a whim and a bunch of bonus miles — to go to Istanbul for the weekend. It was the week after swine flu hit the the papers, and we tried to keep our sneezing and coughing to a minimum, since every sniffle caused the entire plane to stare in fear as if your head was spinning, exorcist style. In theory, we were supposed to walk by a body heat-sensing detector as we disembarked at Ataturk, but due to the general disorganization of landing at 11 p.m. on a Friday, and the fact that both of us actually were feverish (not swine flu, I swear) and did not want to get detained, we managed to sneak right by without questioning from the authorities.
We stayed at a charming little hotel within walking distance of
all the sights: Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque and Grand Bazaar. We walked along the mighty mighty Bosphorus. We ate dinner in a narrow cobblestone alleyway in the now-trendy part of the old city. It’s definitely a place we could live and feel at home.
